Ecosystem Development = no material exogenous market developments are required for the company to be successful. Rather, the ecosystem is ripe to support the innovation.

For example, wimax deployments, RFID reader deployment, etc.

Also, like Newton's "on the shoulder of giants," all start-ups require a foundation of enabling conditions to truly be successful. Understanding the cornerstones of the opportunity and how to leverage them is key to commercialization.

Also, innovation is largely symbiotic. Bill Joy's quote, "innovation happens elsewhere" is important to keep in mind as product design should benefit from the innovation of others rather than solely on the company's employees.

Like any investor, return must be analyzed with risk and customers, like investors, will seek to maximize their Sharpe Ratios, or return divided by standard deviation.

Many start-ups fail to realize the vendor, operational, and product risks they are asking customers to take on. Selling absolute return independent of the risk ignores a major component of customers' product selection. Be conscious of inadvertently creating risk and manage risk out of the sales and deployment model.

The panel agreed that a holistic approach to investing in innovation is required. The maturity of a team's plan depends on moving from the art of what is possible to the science of what is most efficiently consumable.